The purpose of this study is to accurately and comprehensively explore and describe the experience of adolescents with cancer and to provide data to develop nursing interventions for adolescents with cancer.
The data was collected from March 1 to June 25, 1997. The subjects of the study were six adolescents including in-patients and out-patients of a general hospital, who were diagnosed with cancer. In-depth interviews were used in the data collection. The contents of the interviews were recorded on tape.
The meaningful contents were classified and categorized in to seven areas. These areas included changes in body (including 11 attributes), the experience related to medical examinations and treatments (including 2 factors and 10 attributes), changes in school life(including 3 factors and 7 attributes), the experience related to family (including 2 factors and 8 attributes), changes in emotions (including 11 attributes), coping (including 3 factors) and finding meaning.
Some positive outcomes related to the experience of adolescents with cancer are improvement of family relationships, developing spiritual relationships and finding meaning.
The results of this study indicate that it is important to develop a spiritual nursing intervention program for adolescents with cancer.
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